QUESTION:

“Hi Mirna. I am hoping you can help me. Every networking event I go to people are telling me I have to do social media for my business. I realize that social media can be another marketing tool, but can it serve another purpose besides marketing and where do I start with all this? Any insights you have would be very helpful.” — Andrian Pital

ANSWER:

Social Media can be used for many things besides marketing and attracting new customers to your business.  To just name a few:

- Public relations (brand recognition or to respond to a crisis like most recently, the Toyota recall)

- Creating relationships and building stronger bonds with existing customers

- Ongoing customer service

- Listening tool (observing what people are saying about you and your competitors online)

- Market research before developing a product or service

- Engaging with journalists/media

- Collaborating with employees (internal or external communication)

- Integration with offline networking efforts

- Finding joint venture partners

- Recruitment

As you can see from the above list, social media can play a role in every department of a company. There are a few steps you need to take before deciding if social media is right for your business:

1. Decide what you want to use social media for (see above list).

2. Know who your target audience is (age, gender, location, interests, values, etc.).  Of course, if you are a B2B the parameters would be different.

3. Identify your objectives.  These should be very specific and measurable.

4. Learn what social media means as a whole. Many people think it is about social networking only because this is all they are hearing about.  I designed the 15 categories of social media diagram to help businesses understand the entire social media landscape.  You will need to take the time to learn about each of the categories and the tools involved.  The tools and categories you choose should be based on your target audience and objectives.

5. Use social media as a listening tool first and observe what types of conversations people are having online.  Are they already talking about you, your company, your products or services?  Are they talking about your competitors?  Are they talking about your industry?  Are the conversations positive, negative, or neutral?

I recommend spending as much time as possible on steps 4 and 5.   It is really wise to learn as much as you can about social media before you jump on.  If everyone is jumping on Twitter and Facebook, you do not need to follow the hype if it doesn’t make sense for your business.

If you would like to get your questions answered by Mirna, please visit the Ask Mirna page.